What motivates the fighters?
In talking to a couple of local community contacts a variety of reasons have been given for the motives of those who fight on the 'rebel' side in Syria. Curiously much emphasis was put on non-ideological reasons:
Quote:
It is a humanitarian jihad...The Alawite's are heretics...the conflict is glamourised....people here (in Birmingham, UK) feel helpless as they watch non-MSM footage of the war and simply want to do something physical themselves.
Talking about the threat of 'returning fighters' one was quite dismissive:
Quote:
How many have fought overseas before? Very, very few return to launch attacks....Many having "tasted" real-life battle are not the same, it turns them off. Yes a few can "flip" and others can see that happening if they socialise.
One remarked that:
Quote:
We ask them, the aspiring jihadist fighters, those who claim they must go to Syria to help, what are you doing now to help? The war is two years old. Do you realise most assistance for civilians / refugees come from non-Muslims in the West and their governments? When did you last contribute to a collection?
Recommended as a source was an American convert, Bilal Abdul Kareem, who now reports from inside Syria. From an interview he explains:
Quote:
It has been a long year but one that I think is well worth it. I’ve met some extraordinary people and I really feel that more people need to know who these Islamic fighters are and what they want. That doesn’t mean that my goal is for them to necessarily like them, but my goal is for them to know them and then they can decide for themselves.
Link:http://passionislam.com/articles.php?articles_id=265
Thousands of US Muslims went to Afghanistan (Soviet era)
Found on a LinkedIn discussion board today and rather startling for me, as I have never heard of such numbers of Americans being involved:
Quote:
The US had thousands of Muslims go to Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. Many went more than once. Even with bin Laden's rise to leadership of AQ and declared war against America we never saw any violence from the returning jihadists. But I am not saying it won't/can't happen now...
Anyone able to verify this?
US-resident Muslims joined the "Muj"
A "lurker" familiar with the history of US-resident Muslims fighting against the Soviet-backed Afghan state has responded:
Quote:
This is mostly true. There were actually many folks in the U.S. that went to Afghanistan during the 1980's to fight against the Soviets. In 'Looming Tower' by Lawrence Wright, he discusses in the first 100 pages or so how a guy in Kansas City, MO was recruited via a flyer and called a number in Peshawar which got him into the Muj pipeline.
Where the quote isn't entirely correct is the notion that all of these Americans fell into Bin Laden or Zawahiri's hands. There were many Americans that went through but then one wasn't there the entire time nor were all Americans processed through him. The same is for Zawahiri. There were many guest house in Pakistan and there's no way that all the Americans were in the grasp of bin Laden.
Azzam Had set up many guest houses and they were not all controlled by Bin Laden. I'm not aware of any of these stories about lost passports. The bottom line is that not everyone that went to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviets became a member of Al Qaeda'.
If that was the American experience when fighting a Soviet-backed regime was approved of by the US government and many others across the political spectrum, it is clear that very few if any of those who returned continued to wage the violent jihad in the USA. Certainly puts the hype and fear over a possible current threat in a very different perspective.
Then there's those who fight in the IDF
The actual title is 'FactCheck: what about the Britons who fight for Israel?' by Channel Four's fact checkers:http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/...t-israel/18448
This is an argument that appears regularly now when 'foreign fighters' are discussed, so this short article does help with some "light":
Quote:
The Israeli military runs a programme called “
mahal” which allows non-Israeli nationals of Jewish descent to join the ranks of the armed forces for an 18-month tour of duty.....The numbers of volunteers from the UK are small but significant: the IDF told Channel 4 News there are “around one hundred Brits currently serving” in its ranks....apparently with no legal difficulties...
One Dane goes, the stays at home (with short film)
Three different commentaries today.
First a short 30 minute Danish documentary 'European Jihadi' about a Danish citizen of Berber & Moroccan descent:
Quote:
Gangster and drug dealer Abderrozak Benarabe, or Big A as he's known on the streets of Copenhagen, made a deal with God that if his brother was delivered from cancer he would redeem his criminal ways and go to fight jihad in Syria alongside his fellow foreign fighters and child soldiers under 16.... and back to Copenhagen to amass and smuggle supplies to the fighters across the Greek-Turkish border
Note the combat scenes are from 2012, gruesome in part; link:http://www.theguardian.com/world/vid...rontline-video
Accompanying story:http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...rontline-syria
A comment by a viewer, Rachel Briggs who has long studied counter-radicalisation; which ends:
Quote:
There are many theories about why Europeans are travelling to Syria. As ISIS declares itself a caliphate now known as IS and its leader speaks of furthering the Muslim cause, it is worth remembering that not all those who find themselves on the frontline have this kind of focus. Many will be young men and women, bored of life in Europe, in search of adventure. And like Big A, many could be dissuaded given the right deterrents and disincentives.
Link:http://rachelbriggs.wordpress.com/20...ihadi-paradise
A short RUSI comment 'The Four Types of the Returning Jihadi':https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commen.../#.U7vw9kCRcdX
Equal treatment for foreign fighters
One aspect of the current Gaza conflict is the role of foreign nationals serving with the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). Two US nationals died last week, IIRC both had dual nationality. It is an issue that leads to claims that those Muslims who fight in Syria currently are being treated very differently, usually by law enforcement and steps to discourage them going.
More recently two weeks during a public exchange in the UK ago we learnt that:
Quote:
The Israeli military runs a programme called “
mahal” which allows non-Israeli nationals of Jewish descent to join the ranks of the armed forces for an 18-month tour of duty.....The numbers of volunteers from the UK are small but significant:
the IDF told Channel 4 News there are “around one hundred Brits currently serving” in its ranks....apparently with no legal difficulties...
Link:http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/...t-israel/18448
Today a UK-based blogger, formerly a reporter in the Middle East called for those serving in the IDF to be treated as other foreign fighters:http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2014/july....ae0sZGcY.dpbs
This is a longer, broader article:http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opi...438651885.html
Foriegn Fighters in Syria
ICSR info for UN Security Council
The flow to the main conflict zone
Nice graphic via WaPo:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...washingtonpost
Quote:
An estimated 15,000 militants from at least 80 nations are believed to have entered Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad according the CIA and studies by ISCR and The Soufan Group.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bz1SbZBIEAAu7QD.png
This threat will stay with us for at least a decade
The industrious Norwegian SME Thomas Hegghammer was interviewed on what kinds of terror attacks do we have to expect in Europe, and how dangerous are returning Foreign Fighters? Link:http://abususu.blogspot.de/2015/01/t...us-for-at.html
Here is one passage:
Quote:
....we do know is the proportion of people who returned from previous battlefields and then plotted attacks. Before Syria, that rate was 1 out of 15 to 20. If you look at open source data about returnees from Syria who were involved in terror plots across Europe, we have so far seen about 10 plots with roughly 20 returnees involved. That is 20 out of 3000 who left to fight abroad, or 20 out of just over 1000 who have already returned, repectively. So far, it is only a small minority who have become terrorists. The question before us is: How do you stop that minority without over-reacting towards the relatively harmless majority?
Yes there is a thread on foreign fighters, but IMHO what Hegghammer says has few equals.